Association of Proletarian Liberation Struggle, Historical Materialism Group
On January 6, 2025, the Russian military announced the occupation of Kuralhovo city. Kuralhovo is located southeast of Bokrivsk (Red Army City), the defense hub of the Ukrainian military in the southern line of Donbas. The fighting in this area clearly reflects the situation of Ukraine’s comprador army: 1,700 soldiers of the Ukrainian 155th Mechanized Brigade, trained in France and dispatched for nearby defense, fled the unit before the first battle. The so-called “Minkov” claims this is France teaching Ukraine the tradition of surrender, but in reality, it is due to the corruption and incompetence of the Ukrainian comprador government, which has lost the support of the people (France’s surrender in WWII was also due to the bourgeois government being unpopular). The Ukrainian bourgeoisie can bribe their way out of conscription with $6,000, while the proletariat is almost sent to the front lines as cannon fodder with little training and hardly any rotation. Most soldiers of the 155th Brigade trained less than five weeks; the superstitious and weapon-centric Ukrainian comprador believed that having “advanced weapons” could stop the Russian army, but with artillery lacking training and having to learn on the battlefield, it resembled the decay of the Qing government— all 120mm mortar shells supplied by the state-owned enterprise Minstrategprom were found defective (On November 28, Ukrainian Minister of Strategic Industry German Smetanin stated that out of 54,000 suspected defective 120mm mortar shells, about 24,000 would be recalled. On December 4, during testing, none of the 10 shells exploded). Previously, Ukrainian comprador even had scandals where they spent $40 million to buy no shells, and soldiers of the 155th Brigade had to purchase missing drone weapons themselves. It is evident that Ukrainian comprador officials are lining their pockets, and one of the reasons for Ukraine’s defeat in Wolfchansk in May 2024 was the neglect of repairs and building villas for comprador officials in Kyiv and other places. Soldiers naturally do not want to be cannon fodder for comprador bourgeoisie under the tense front and rear situations. Meanwhile, “experienced units— the 25th Airborne Brigade and the 68th Rifle Brigade— face severe infantry shortages,” making it impossible to stabilize the front. Ukrainian comprador forces are forcing draftees brought from the streets of the 155th Brigade to the front, believing that as long as the unit numbers increase, NATO will provide more weapons, but this only results in self-inflicted humiliation. In fact, in the first ten months of this year alone, Ukrainian prosecutors have filed investigations into about 60,000 cases of soldiers abandoning their posts, nearly double the total from the two years before the conflict erupted. After the Ukrainian military’s failed counterattack in Zaporizhzhia in 2023 and losing strategic initiative, they continued to retreat in southern Donbas. When Avdiivka was besieged with three shortages, Ukrainian soldiers fled directly; later, in the northwest of Avdiivka, at the key position Ocheretyn, they “engaged the enemy and then fled” within a few days (Note: The reason it’s called a key position is because it is a high ground in the Red Army City area). In August 2024, to win the favor of imperialist masters, Ukrainian forces launched an attack into Kursk Oblast of the Russian Federation, achieving some progress but quickly being halted by Russian troops. Ultimately, they failed to mobilize Russian troops in Bokrivsk militarily, instead wasting most of the reserve forces in Kursk, leading to the collapse of the southern line of Donetsk. Some say that if Ukraine concentrated its forces and sent 20,000 troops from Kursk to the southern line, the outcome might have been different, but this is not something Ukrainian comprador officials can decide on their own. After the summer offensive in 2023 failed, the US imperialist bloc reduced aid to Ukraine, shifting from direct funding to loans collateralized by Russian assets. In 2024, the US, Germany, France, and others that supported Ukrainian comprador governments were replaced or weakened; South Korea also followed the orders of the US imperialist masters, cutting aid to Ukraine. If Ukrainian comprador officials do not follow imperialist directives, they risk losing aid[1]. Therefore, on January 5, Ukrainian comprador forces launched another attack in Kursk Oblast, resulting in over 170 casualties and more than ten vehicles destroyed so far. Meanwhile, Ukrainian comprador announced the registration of males over 18, and when reporters asked if this was for further mobilization, they answered with the classic “no weapons, more people is useless,” adhering to the weapon-centric doctrine. Of course, it is not true, as bourgeois media claim, that weak countries like Ukraine cannot defeat imperialist invasion. Similarly, faced with advanced weapons of imperialist countries, the Chinese People’s Volunteer Army during the Korean War, even when making mistakes in the fourth campaign, could retreat without collapsing, stabilizing the situation and weakening the enemy through “zeroing out” tactics— that is, annihilating one enemy battalion at a time. Although the current war of attrition favors the Russian imperialists, they have paid a huge price for these gains. In 2024, the number of Russian casualties approached the total of the previous two years (Note: By the end of November 2024, the number of Russian death notices recorded had reached 80,000, while in early January 2024, only 40,000 were recorded—meaning the number of Russian casualties in the first 11 months of 2024 could have exceeded the first 22 months of the war. Plus, with puppet armies, North Korean troops, other mercenaries, and uncounted casualties, the total Russian dead likely exceeded 150,000, far surpassing Ukrainian casualties: in July 2024, when Russian casualties exceeded 60,000, Ukrainian casualties were only 50,000). Their stockpiled weapons are also nearly exhausted. The Russian imperialists replaced Shoigu with Belousov as Minister of Defense, strictly auditing military expenses, reflecting economic difficulties. By the end of the year, after US sanctions expanded against Russia, the ruble depreciated by about 10%. As a result, Russia had no time to support Bashar al-Assad’s fall. Additionally, with Ukraine cutting off transit of Russian natural gas in 2025, the Left Bank of the Dniester region, under Russian control, began experiencing power shortages, entering an energy crisis. It is expected that local coal reserves will be depleted in 52 days, after which Russia will face a choice between the frontlines of Ukraine and the Dniester region.
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[1] Ukrainian comprador’s use of the “fueling” tactic across the Dnieper River in Klinki for months without retreat was also under pressure from British imperialism